During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Chilean economists Sergio de Castro and Ernesto Fontaine traveled the world explaining how their neoliberal economic policies helped write what’s often described as one the biggest success stories in South American politics. That story goes as follows.

After the start of the Cold War, the US government facilitated a partnership between the University of Chicago and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago. By exposing students like Fontaine and De Castro to the pro-market worldviews of Chicago’s renowned faculty — including Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger — Washington hoped to steer Chile from communism toward capitalism.

This partnership came at an opportune moment for both parties. While the first generation of “Chicago Boys” — as the Chileans who visited Hyde Park became known — adapted Católica’s curriculum to the American model, Chile’s economy was falling apart.